I wanna let you feel strong

Both meringues and brownies were divine. 

Ladies' Night was lovely! Travelled up with multiple outfit ideas and ended up going with something I had packed at the last minute as a 'why not' rather than any of the things I had carefully planned in advance. This being my red sleeveless top (I wore it over a t-shirt and decided I couldn't wear it in my last run through, then packed it just in case) and my baggiest flare-iest blue jeans (first pair I bought ever?). Alas, no photos of me there this time, just plenty of shots of half eaten plates of food as I forgot to get photos before we all started eating. Shiona organised it well, again, but seemed even more harried than last time, which I guess makes sense as she was more cognisant of what needed to be done than last time! Middlest stopped over and played various games, including crusading in space, with the boys and had a whale of a time from all accounts. I even got to see Tim and Lisa during the day - which was great! Had a proper chat with both of them, first since probably the last Ladies' Night with Lisa, and I do need to find a way to keep that momentum going this coming year. And Gary - chatting and keeping going both!

In many ways it served as a good cap on what has happened since the last Ladies' Night and, hopefully, offers a good start date for this particular lifetime.

I won this in the raffle.

Afterwards I was in contact with a trans woman who was also there, she goes full stealth and not everyone even knows (as opposed to me, I am clocked usually within the first thirty seconds and so then lean in to that), and she was lovely over the Book of Faces messenger. Mind you, I have my usual concern about my behaviour as I was thanked for not outing her apropos of nothing and so, naturally, I thought: wait, how close did I come to doing so? I must have done at some point, is my thought, or the thanks make no sense. Whoops. Like I say, I am so far off being able to stealth that I forget other people can and do. Also had a chat about nothing and everything with Shiona - another thing much missed and that I should work harder than I do to keep going - before getting picked up by my Mum. Shiona did pass on a physical copy of possibly the second only photo taken in the wild that I can actually stand (I actually really like it) that Gary had printed too.

I shan't share it here (goodness knows, I want to) because of the fact that it has other people in the photo... Mind you, I might try later and see if I can crop it somehow... I do rather like the photo, y'see. And, importantly, I love what it represents too - not just that I am in it but that it is of me and a friend and... it means a lot, is what I'm saying.

It's a mimosa. I also had a couple of Woo Woos
but, of course, failed to get a photo of either of
those.

Thus the lion's share of Mother's Day was spent with my Mum - Tilly had moved it back a week so that Middlest could join me this week - playing things like Rummikub and Balderdash which I was suprised by how much Middlest enjoyed. Also Boggle on the first night up (we came on the train and stayed in my Mum's flat whilst she was off with friends for a short trip). It's been a good bonding time for me and him too. We finished up last night watching Matilda - a story about which I have Feelings and Opinions. The film departs quite far from the book in places that do rather alter the message, but, I feel, not in a particularly negative way, which is interesting. I did not, as I expected I would, identify all that much with Matilda nor, I guess, Miss Honey. Indeed, I don't think I identified with any character.

Today is the train trip home - plenty of thoughts whirling in my head that I shall no doubt share at another point. When I'm a little more able to put them into words.

And, I guess, that's my lot for this entry. Positive. Unfinished. Much like life itself.

Eeee hee hee hee!

Holding Places

Just a quick post tonight to record some images. If you've read here long enough then the significance will be obvious. If not...

I used to sign every post off with a photo of a curtsey and I used to love the dress in these photos. It was a thing of beauty that I indulged very infrequently. Today I was feeling flighty and silly, and I thought: hey, I can wear that dress if I want. So I did. I spun in it. I took it out for shopping. I walked to Abbi's in it and I took my apron so that I could cook. Abbi offered to take a photo and we both had the same idea at the same time; she was like "why don't you curt-" but I already had. Hence the smile. Then she took a short video.

So, I am storing them here. The mood, I feel, is pretty obvious too.

Retail Therapy

Time off had been booked, and started, and I had a bath on Wednesday evening - which is how come I ended up doing some kind of devotional over Said Judas to Mary as I had listened to it all day, in the bath, and then again typing the post. My Mum had been over, which was lovely, and I was up late the following morning but with a mission. Originally, the plan had been that I was meeting up with Miss Warrington after noon and then my trainer from another store in a large local urban conurbation after that for a quick shopping trip - neither happened. Hence bath. Instead, on Thursday, I worked up my courage and actually invited a friend out shopping - so it was that I went and met Abbi and we piled off to the big smoke to just pootle in shops. My mission, such as it was, was to get a collar that I could wear with things what aren't red or purple - so, you know, a proper Goth-y sort of thing - but with Abbi there it became more about the ambience and walking around with a friend. This, in case it wasn't obvious, was a Good Thing.

This was an animation that Google made for me 
from the photos we took near a fountain. 

I love it because it sums up the genuine joy. 

Thanks to Abbi, we ended up in Claire's and I lived my 90s dream of just looking at what they had. Mental note made: they have some just lovely glasses that I shall have to get the next time I'm in town! I then introduced her to Tiger Tiger, the Danish version of the best bits of IKEA, and I mulled on chopsticks (but I have some lovely ones from Tim back when I lived in the same city as he). Then we went to the part of the city where Pride never stops and ended up in a couple of Goth-adjacent shops. If I had £200 I would have bought a couple of darling Hell Bunny dresses!! But I don't, so I didn't. Time was getting on, so we went back to my favourite Vegan gaming local cafe and had some herbal tea and big cakes. Abbi showed poise and grace and I just shovelled mine down like a starving woman shown chocolate. I mean, it was a Millionaire slice so... well, Oscar Wilde once said: "I can resist everything but temptation" and I can relate.

Some lovely photos but, mostly, just a lovely time. I really enjoyed it, and it made me realise how long it has been since I had friends geographically close enough that I could do such a thing. And, well, also how long it had been since I allowed myself to actually have fun whilst out in a town to shop. I mean, I got nothing I went for, my mission failed, but I finished feeling happy, joyous and energised rather than vaguely down and upset that I had failed to get what I went for. That's... well, that's how it should be, right?

I didn't know this was being taken, but I love that
it was. I know: a photo that I didn't pose for that I
don't mind was taken and then actually like.

Miss Warrington had arranged to come over that afternoon, but did not again, and instead I forgot all about Chams until I was checking on Instagram (get me and my bad self) and had a message about a lift!! So, with a lovely friend offering a lift, I hastily dressed in something Fancy-Dress adjacent (I called the outfit a name and everything) and off we went to Chams. A lovely night, quite the tonic! I didn't realise how much I'd missed going. Got talking with two lovely ladies and ended up deep in conversation about, well, technical bits and bats to do with being trans and, well, that was lovely. Something about just being able to chat and talk about something and nothing with no pressure to know anything was just... lovely. There was a point when I got semi-irritated as an assumption was made about my knowledge level and I was able to realise a. I was irritated, b. why and c. deal with it because I had no right to be irritated - no one was judging me, they were being nice and so I was able to just swallow and carry on. Lovely. What a joy not to have to feel that I had defend my masculinity box (however, talking about how femme folk walk and how to increase one's own femme-walk is probably not the province of most masculinity boxes out there).

Costume name: "Always the Bridesmaid"

Mismatching hoooooo!

Friday, and Middlest was over from early in the day and Miss Warrington was finally able to make a visit. Huzzah! It was reeally nice to hear Her gossip from where I worked and just... well, I miss the lunchtimes we spent and... yeah. Her boy played with Middlest and they both had a whale of time and then She was gone again - a busy weekend ahead and lots to do. She did drop off a birthday present of some lovely gin testers based on something She'd seen me post on Insta, so that was really nice too!

Today has been a lazy day with Middlest, he's had a great time playing chess and watching videos. Currently he's upstairs painting whilst I make tea. Just a hair trim and I'll have achieved everything I wanted to with the week. Got to finish the Gendered Intelligence application, but I hadn't planned to get that done in my time off so if I do that'll be an extra. A gift for Shiona (and Gary) hasn't yet been sorted (but I know what it is, I just need to arrange it) and then maybe I'll spend some money online on a decent collar-y thing after all.

Goodness, this is just a laundry list of things. Mainly I wanted to say some nice things that had happened and share the positives of, well, living as my actual self for a change. I mean, there's been a lot since March, but it never hurts to count one's blessings every now and again. To November, then, and the potential for actual write-ins for the first time since 2006!!!

And the unrealistic shot because the vest
ruined the back look - but I like it.

Damn!! Forgot to curtsey!!

Juice that makes your head explode...

How can I possibly hope to put everything into words? Um... I don't know. Stand by, then, for a blizzard of diction with some loose thread holding it all together.

Last week, after the meeting at work (I don't think I spoke of that here, lots on), I wandered back with Abigail (formerly referred to as Barbara) to her place and sort of hung out and chatted (me still in work uniform, Abbi had thought to take a change of clothes - I have much to learn). It was lovely, I ended up there until very late indeed. On Sunday she came over to my place (my dishes still unwashed despite the best of intentions) and we hung out and chatted and it was lovely again. Today... we both had days off. I'd had Middlest over and he'd gone home - I had a shower to wash my hair afterwards - and then I went over and...

My hair has braids in it.

Can you see the vibrations?
Can you think what I feel? Can you feel 
what I think?

My hair has braids in it.

Since learning what gender euphoria was and having stabs of it with the FaceApp thing I haven't had anything as intense and joyous as today's visit. I literally lack the vocabulary. It was all I could do not to vibrate with happiness the entire time. Abbi offered to do my hair and I couldn't quite believe what was happening and then, then, she did it. Just thinking about it again as I type these words I am struggling to contain the urge to explode. I said I had never felt that way before, but on reflection I have: when Toby dressed me in his purple 'wedding dress' that time and I lost the ability to words and grammar. When Tilly and I first had some physical time together in Oxford and she finished with a smile. When Tilly had moved in and we had physical time together and she ended up above me and I said "all of your bits are perfectly proportioned" because my words were essentially jumbled and all that remained was the positive emotional need to express things. When I was chatting to people at the Ladies' Night in February and Shiona took the selfie of us both. And, now, today. But the intensity...

She read to me the book she made for her and her husband, telling the story of how they met and agreed to marry, with the photos and it was just the most beautiful thing. Raw, honest, poetic, moving. She told me of her family, not the first time, and it was... I can't words. I can barely grammar. I actually, genuinely, without thought, hugged her in happiness. Like, I've never hugged a friend for joy before, not without serious consideration beforehand! Actually, no, okay, I did hug Shiona similarly, but that was a long time ago now in Easter.

The evening ended with me being able to share Abbi and Alex's first time watching Remembrance of the Daleks and Happiness Patrol. I don't know if I can even describe how much of an honour that was, a high honour.

I can't, I actually can not. So, I'm off to flap hands for a bit and just... burst.

If You're Going to San Fran-Cisco

First ever flower in my hair!!! 
Well, okay, I tried a buttercup and it was 
too small. This was the first serious effort. 

One of my key arguments throughout my life when faced with things that have been gendered unnecessarily has always been to confound them with my own tastes. ASD has gendered symptoms? Not at all! I display the female symptoms! Colours are for girls? Not at all! I like those colours! And... well, I can't use those apparently watertight arguments any more, can I? What brought this up? Well, for the longest time I have hankered after wearing a flower in my hair. And, well, I finally got round to doing it this week - yesterday for the first time (I lost it after running through a field) and today again because I could. Both times, I loved it. This evening I was out with the Middlest and, as an experiment, I asked if he would like to try as well. He did not. At all. So, I guess, semi-confirmed that my desire to wear a flower in my hair is a feminine one.

Or, at least, it is not one shared by my Middlest child who is, as far as I can tell, relatively gender-conforming in a very autistic way. Much as I would assume I would be had I been in any way gender conforming. Is that even the right terminology? My point is that I can't so very well go around using myself as an example of masculinity to break down apparently pointless gendering now. I'm not complaining, just pointing it out.

Part of the field in which I lost the flower.

Out on a random walk this evening with
the Middlest. Just taken it out now.

Pink eye-shadow, in case you can even tell.

And, on that note, I was cruising Reddit and in answering someone's question I remembered that, since around the age of twelve, I have always assumed that, if I were to have breasts, they would be a B cup. Which, now as I think about it a bit, is a really strange thought for a twelve year old boy to have and then to maintain as a thing for the next nearly thirty years. I have no deeper thoughts on that one beside how odd it was at the time and how neatly it dove-tails with the thing about the flower in tha hair. Oh, yes, in answer to the question: I do stuff to a B cup now. I did stuff to a C cup once, that time I went to the Goth club with Toby, but that felt... wrong and right. Right in that I had a bosom (Toby would ask me to remove the stuffing at the end of the night and, though I did, I recall the feeling of intense disappointment at being asked) but wrong in that it felt way too big.

I also ended up buying some new flats yesterday - in blue - and they are surprisingly comfortable! I have been using them as slippers since and they are superior to the ones I had from IKEA. I popped into a charity shop whilst out, I had cased the shoes on Sunday's walk, and ended up procuring two new dresses. One of which I had assumed was a black version of the navy dress I love so - but on comparing the two side by side this morning I realised it was just the same dress. Again, no complaints, I now have two (and this one was brand new with tags so now I know I can wash it in the washing machine!) and I do like the dress so that's nice. the other one looked obnoxiously orange to my eyes but, when I took a photo, looked more peach.

I so wanted it to be obnoxious, but this looks tame.
Again, not complaining, I love it. It's just not as loud as
I thought!

From darkness to light again.
This was about the point I realised that I was
getting blisters again.

That walk on Sunday may have done my feet in again, though, as the walk home from IKEA on Monday was painful again (sides of my heels this time with blisters) and, though I could walk today, I was put off walking to get the flats and dresses yesterday and struggled today generally (though I did get to wander into town). I was looking for some yellow and/or black nail varnish, I haven't worn any at all for about four weeks, but declined to spend £3.50 after already blowing £7 on shoes and £8 on dresses. My father has booked in for seeing a Prom with my brother and I on 10 August - which is nice - but I'm not sure either of them have really thought through how I shall be presenting. It does mean an opportunity to wear that floaty number I didn't end up walking in, just need to consider some kind of jacket I guess. And whether or not it's a good idea to wear it to London with the high likelihood of using the Underground and, well, walking through London. The skirt may be a tad full and long. The alternative is one of my 'work' dresses as they shall look smart, at least. The equivalent of turning up in the past in a suit I suppose. It's always way too hot.

All of which ends in a poerm - which is like a poem but crap. Like mah sh1tty wr1ttens...

And once more ambushed out,

tea brewed steaming, by the

brash inner child singing gaily.

Your inner child who ached

to have a flower in her hair;

Who loved daisies but feared

the jeers of her peers ringing.

She'd longed to run in wild fields,

scattered weeds and overgrown leaves

choked, believing it wrong and dark.

Now stronger, freer, the call

of the meadow in the springtime

sunshine streaming softly:

wearing the flower and

                                       laughter.

Welly Boots

Sunday - in flares I go for a random walk
and buy a blouse for future use at work.
I get FaceApp to do the dirty.

Since earlier this year, since I realised that not only could I be trans but that I would allow myself to be trans - and thus, well, recognising the fact that, yes, I was trans and always had been... since then, I have found myself doing the kinds of things that I have spent literal years avoiding. Because, well, I had sort of given myself permission. Then summer arrived: I went to an in-person support group, I screwed up my courage and went dressed. Then I pushed through and went to my favourite vegan board-gaming local cafe dressed as myself and weathered it - no, I didn't just weather it, I went and really enjoyed being me. I was me, for possibly the first time, out there in the world. Much of the summer was spent being me thereafter, like a damn had broken and the me in me was rushing out into the world. I was looking in mirrors, I wasn't swearing at myself in a morning, I wasn't stressed, I had my ups and downs but, ultimately, I was able to be a bit kinder to myself because I was, well, I was me.

So it was that I went back to work and rapidly built up new practices: I no longer have a beard; I wear an alice band; I wear glasses; I underdress; I have new socks. True, work made things hard - it always does - and the cyber-attack and subsequent shenanigans making me feel more precarious; but mostly I weathered it (felt very down when my tooth exploded) and now my children are away for the week.

I really like the train-wreck hair here,
even if the app really struggled with the
dimensions of my face.

Tonight, I faced my first failure to launch. I had the option, and the time, to go to my local favourite gaming local vegan local cafe and... I didn't. I came home, started the tea, and applied mascara - dressing in my flared jeans, new white long-sleeve t-shirt and my favourite pink one over the top. I put on my stuffed bra (an old lacy one this time, not one of the recent t-shirt bra purchases) and my glasses and... I'm sat here. Last night I went out (jeans and white top; but a coat over the top and with the same stuffed bra) and bought my tea from the chippy. No make-up... but I did it. And, trust me, I feel so comfortable in mascara right now. Like, I am genuinely shaken by just how much of a difference it's made to put it on and how much more like me I feel. But I haven't gone out, as I had planned, to my favourite local favourite gaming favourite vegan cafe.

Why?

Partly due to the fact that KT is likely there and I'm not ready for her to know about me just yet - she is in contact with Tilly and is likely to 'let slip' what she knows and I'm not ready to have Tilly find out via someone else. And I didn't want to go in disguise enough to do that either.

This one is just... nice.

Over the weekend my Union Rep sent me an e-mail about the NEU advice for transitioning staff. My place of work does not have a policy for transitioning staff. But it does have a policy for transitioning students. This policy states that a student will be supported in terms of clothing choices if the student is over 18 but that the school will not accept name changes or pronoun changes unless and until a Gender Recognition Certificate is provided and, regardless of age, will not change unless parents support the change as well. Parents supporting the change is not enough to allow staff to use new pronouns or names. Staff may, but this will not be supported by the register or by communications from the school. This is all perfectly legal and very conservative. The Union advice is for a much more supportive policy but...

Here I sit, dressed as me, glass or Rose wine on hand, and I think: how long? Next academic year perhaps? Sooner?

I really enjoyed the summer. I really enjoyed the chance to be me, the realisation that I could be me and still function. I found myself exactly where I feared I would be, but, in the end, there was no real fear. Not really. There was just me. And that was wonderful. I caught glimpses of me in the mirror and what I saw there was joy, happiness, contentment. I saw myself as if for the first time. I have slept better these last six months than I remember sleeping for a long long time. And, tonight, as I applied mascara in the mirror, I realised just how much I actually like myself. Sorry, typing that has brought tears to my eyes that I simply wasn't expecting. I'm going to stop typing now.

And I haven't felt so alive in years

Yesterday morning, no FaceApp
shenanigans.

This recent spell of productivity in terms of blogging is not usual for me. Not since the opening of the blog have I felt like I have this much to say and to contribute to trans things in general or cross-dressing in particular. I mean, okay, nothing here is that earth-shattering or even terribly revealing, but it is the first time in literal years that I can't seem to keep it all in.

Following Tuesday night things have been... hard to describe. I've had actual luminaries reading this place recently and it has been humbling and also electrifying. Electrifying, yes, it all feels rather electrifying.

Rarely do I have so much time to myself and it won't be repeated - the eldest is at a summer school next week that I am providing transport to and from, thus no full days. Then there is the trip Oop North to see my mother for a week with the elder two children. Then, well, it'll be prep for the new year and then back at work. Each week ram-packed with things and duties (well, ram-packed for me, I can't really match normal people for processing power or speed). And though I'll never again have to wave goodbye to what I have released since April (goodness, I don't know if that feels like a long time ago or really recently - in which way am I surprised? I am just surprised) I shan't be able to indulge as I have been over these last few days. Why? Well, the quarantine ends for the rest of the family and that means being a bit more present in the world as my disguise.

Good morning, Jo, there you are!
How've you been?

However, today I do not have to do this. After a brief shopping trip in disguise for the family (and a long talk on the doorstep with Tilly when dropping it off) I struggled back at home. Eventually I donned not my t-shirt and skirt but a boiler-suit style thing I got at some point - honestly can't recall when I bought it. It does not appear to have been recorded here. Then it was online RPG with some friends, Tim and people I know from my MA, which was lovely. Naturally I was wearing glasses too and it just felt so relaxing. "People ask: do you feel like a man or a woman? And I answer: I feel... happy."

Late out of bed this morning, reading comments, and a long shower. And I thought, you know what? Why not put on the mascara today anyway? Before I did, I realised that my hair had kind of styled itself, I liked it, and I remembered the lipstick. So, with mascara and lipstick, glasses and a bit of hair pushing, I got dressed in my Snag tights (80 denier), black denim skirt and a 3/4 sleeve top from Poundland. Do I look good? Can't say. I feel amazing.

EDIT - 1800hrs

A facial curtsey?

As the day has progressed I keep catching sight of my face as I turn in the mirrors in the hallway and, coupled with the feeling of the tights (spice melange by the way) and the way it feels to look through glasses... It's me. I look and I see me for perhaps the first time. I'm looking in the mirror and I am looking back. Okay, okay, I'm not going to win any prizes - the make-up is sparse, the five o'clock shadow is, well, shadowing and the styling of my hair non-existant. Going out like this in public would be dangerous and likely to draw derision and insult. But, for all of that, it's me. I'm there in the mirror, just as I turn I catch glimpses. As I sit and watch a film, I feel comfortable, relaxed, and almost content. There's no point adding a new image to the post, I don't even know how I could capture that look I get. I want to pose with one of my swords - don't ask me why because I simply don't know - but I can't take a selfie and hold my double-handed monster of a bastard sword. Whilst my cavalry sabre might work one-handed, it would be hard to get a selfie as well. Somehow I don't think I can ask people at a support group to contemplate having a sword on the premises!

But that's just it, this isn't maudlin, this is joyous madness. Proper, actual, joy!

What have I learned?

What can I say?

Just shy of a month in to my new reality and feeling... bereft.

What have I learned?

In the first week I learned that I could read at night again, get everything done in plenty of time and get to work earlier than I had managed since 2010. I read The Boy in the Dress and realised just how much I had yearned for a similar plotline as a child. And how shallow Walliams was as a person and how strangely empty of emotion he seems to be on his own past. It's odd, but I found the characters to be callous and without depth. His dedication suggests he was talking of real events, if so: there's no meat to the character's bones and the setting is, at best, unclear in time., Fascinating, yes, but not totally for the right reasons.

I learned that I could look after my children alone, but I knew that. And I learned that I missed cooking.

Second week: I learned that I missed my relationship from before 2011. I missed the joys of things, I missed music most of all. I was listening to CDs as I worked, digging through old tracks and getting work done. I was pootling on the internet. I was able to dress more. I wore tights and knickers to work, because why not. I shaved my legs and pubic hair, because I wanted to. I hadn't dared do that since August 2005 and I only did that once for fear of being exposed at school. I'm older now, no chance of being exposed. No one, but no one, is interested in me for my body or for romantic entanglements, so why not. I tried a smaller chastity ring for a day. Ditched it.

Week three was more of that. I managed four days in chastity with a larger ring, but became depressed. And so I stopped dressing again and chastity. I was very sad, very lonely.

In all of the weeks, I realised that I wasn't missing how things were. Tilly is the happiest and most stable I have ever seen her. Me moving out has been the greatest gift I think I have ever managed to give to her. There have been provocations, sure, I don't think she like sme being outsdie of her control. The youngest is the most cut up, he wants to stay over but Tilly does not want that. She has compromised to allow me to see the children as we do, how much have I moved? She'd love to know, because she feels I'm getting everything I want.

And I am struggling.

That's it.

With Us Until You're Dead

The first in a series of outfits. I returned the
shirt and jeggings. I ruined the tights with
urine play though.

Three days and nights without the family again, but this time it was at the end of the holiday period, giving me a full Friday and weekend with a Monday back at work. This was the last weekend that I had and it ought to have allowed me to get back on top of my beer blog postings and maybe even post here with some of the thoughts that have been chasing round in my brain, but of course that didn't happen. I have discovered, if that is the right word, the site WriteForMe - I mean, I've known about it for a while, but over the last week I got a bit hooked on doing typing lines as a task. Don't ask me why. I want to say it is a sexual response thing, I'm odd enough, but I'm not sure that's the whole thing.

Okay, this is not unusual. I know that most people who do 'line-writing' do it for the sole purpose of entering 'sub-space' and gaining the sexual high from being ordered to do something for pointless reasons. A reading of a smattering of the tasks on there will reveal that there is a core of 'safe' humiliation, of the sort that people call humiliation but isn't really, being grounded as it is in such stereotypical notions of what gender roles are for that it is so far removed from actual reality to be anything other than a created, pernicious space. An assumption that to be humiliated is, itself, a feminine notion when that just doesn't tally with the research I have read. It is a notion peculiar to males that humiliation involves 'feminization' - and the inverted commas are deliberate - and that speaks volumes about privilege and the constant spectre of toxic masculinity.

Friday night's outfit. Only the bra and collar
were new.

And that was the evenings, until very late (sometimes 1am) in the week leading up to Tilly taking the children to see her parents. Her father hasn't met the Third Child yet and so that was something that needed to happen. I arranged, via GetDare, a programme of events involving dressing and whatnot. On the Friday, after work, I went out and got some supplies involving adult nappies (I've mentioned urination as a thing I have wanted to try since around the age of 13 before, it wasn't until I was about 24 I even realised that it was a relatively common, if niche, sexual fetish), new feminine pyjamas and a welter of clothes from a supermarket. I spent maybe £100 on clothing (shirt, jeggings, hooded top, jogging bottoms, bra [in my actual size, 38B in case you wondered], knickers [matching and lace], the aforementioned pyjamas), padlocks, sandpaper (for sitting on), new collar and leash (from a pet shop), adult nappies and incontinence pads. I even wore a nappy until I peed in it too. Then I dressed and did some tasks from GetDare before retiring to bed in the new pyjamas and bra. It was lovely.

The PJs I kept. No idea why the photo is
upside down. A snip at £7.

In the cold light of dawn I realised that I couldn't really justify blowing £100 on such things and took £50 of clothing back for a refund. But I did end up spending much of Saturday afternoon into the evening and on into the night dressed and doing random tasks. The one that should have been the best was to dress in that dress from way back (my first crossdressed pictures on here) and doing cleaning jobs before changing into a more formal dress to do some dancing. I even found a way to attach the wig that I rescued long ago properly and brush it. The build up was exquisite and I was really looking forward to it. Imagine my confusion when I got to the dancing and rapidly found myself unable to dance or hold a beat. I just couldn't get into the music properly and ended up feeling like I used to when I went clubbing - empty, vulnerable, stupid and worthless. I damn near cried in the toilet and just tried to bull through with some other tasks whilst feeling awful for ruining what should have been a brilliant moment. It was like being back at University again, in a party or at the club or just surrounded by other people. This was real humiliation and I was entirely alone.

Still one of my favourite shots of me. These are
mostly the clothes I cleaned in.

I struggled to get a picture of the dress and me.
I could have just stood in front of the mirror.
But I didn't. As an interesting aside, the tight
dress and bra, stuffed a bit, made it look like
I actually had small breasts in this shot.
I was actually trying to get the hair out of my
face so I could see the phone screen clearly.

The interesting detached thing is that I kept the dress, bra, knickers, wig and bracelets on but took off the necklace and collar. I even kept the shoes and tights on. And I felt comfortable, but only kneeling, it didn't feel 'right' to sit down in that finery and I couldn't so very well operate the computer when on my feet, so kneeling it was. Not in a sexual or submissive manner, just kneeling. Regardless, the upshot was that nothing much of anything productive was done on the Saturday. Before bed I ended up packing the remaining clothing away with the rest of my cross-dressing wardrobe and putting it all away. I didn't even sleep in my new pyjamas. On the Sunday I ended up getting some odd jobs done and generally getting a bit bored.

Don't get me wrong, I masturbated like crazy (for me), because you needed to know that. But I didn't dress. I felt like I didn't deserve it. I went back to work on Monday, yesterday, and got some work done. It was almost a productive day and everything. Then I picked up the family from the train station and we went home and had take out. Tilly does care about me and does try to be loving. She had arranged to visit a micro-brewery before heading down, went, and brought back a selection of ales after discussing my tastes with the brewer there (previously arranging this online). It was very thoughtful and I am very happy with the beer she has returned with - even the children were very excited to give me the ale as a present and felt that they had been fully engaged in the choosing of the bottles. It was a lovely gesture. It may be Aspergic or just being a dick but I don't get much of a feeling from it for myself. I pick up on what the whole thing meant for Tilly and the children, and that is good to know I suppose, but I don't feel much from it myself.

An older, better, photo of the formal dress.

The hooded top and jogging bottoms (leggings?)
that I tried on but then returned because I could
not justify spending so much on them.
They were £7 each, for reference.

Tilly and I chatted over takeout. We have watched Game of Thrones together over the holidays on the same sofa, taking holding Third Child in turns as we do, but we have been no closer than normal in this time. Eating and talking last night was similar in this regard. I think Tilly is finally getting something from our conversations, or she has grown used to getting nothing, hard to tell for certain and I'm not the right person to ask. But there's been no real change in terms of what I get from them, Tilly is as much an enigma to me now as she was back when I started this blog.

At work yesterday I was playing with handwriting and words, as is my wont in staff meetings when I am bored, and it occurred to me that the name I actually use on this blog is odd. It is derived, carefully, from personal choices with a flick toward a taken name (like when women change their surname when married). I used to write under the moniker of Joanna Atkins and so the change to Joanna Cale was a symbolic semi-submissive gesture intended to mimic being married as a woman. But I gave myself those names. Toby related a dream once, early in our relationship, which I have related here before. She had dreamed that she was a man named 'Toby' and that she was introducing me as her girlfriend to people she knew and called me 'Rebecca' or 'Bex' for short. It is why my posting profile on Rachel's Haven (when I go there, which is not often these days) is signed off as 'Bex'. And that reared up loud and proud. Because Bex (or Rebecca) is not a name that I gave myself, it was a name that was given and, briefly, even used in place of my own name by Toby. It never occurred to me at the time to do anything other than answer to it and certainly not to return the favour. I should have returned the favour. Just to see and try it out. It is why she gets called Toby here, a sort of debt paid if you like in a forum she will never see it, which is a shame.

Another attempt to capture that dress on
Saturday night.

As an aside and digression, a friend of mine is doing something similar with an excellent piece of ongoing fiction called 'Stupid' and that is what had started me on that particular road of rumination. Nonetheless, the reflection resulted in a new name that could be used - which I shan't reveal here in case I want to use it for a side project - and I found myself writing it out to see what I could do with it. It would take a significant deviation from my normal acquired handwriting style (not my usual, it was designed as a 'neat' hand that was not my own, to disguise my hand when writing things, it is largely successful unless you know me because one thing it does not hide is the pressure of my writing and the heaviness of my hand) to render the name well and that, in and of itself, is something I found very interesting. Which, obliquely, brings me back to WriteForMe and the notion that the name could be set as lines to get used to using it and typing it. Like in old books when the female character would practice their name with the surname of the object of their oddly desexualised lust because women don't feel sexual attraction, they brood for the children they would have. Or something.

I am totally aware that all of this is escapism. I have avoided the news in the car for the whole holidays and dipped in to world events only through the occasional lens of John Oliver, Stephen Colbert and the Daily Show over the last seven weeks. I can't quite deal with it, as related in previous posts, it's all a little too much at the moment.

Why post all of this? I don't know, but here it is regardless.

An older shot of me attempting to curtsey. Tilly has
now worn and used the dress and it was thrown out.
By Tilly, not me. I was unable to rescue it.

I'm a player in the Continental Game

It wasn't long ago that I lived all of my life with musical accompaniment. I would rise to a radio playing, tuned to music stations, and then would get ready in the morning to a CD in the CD player. On my way to work I would listen to a tape in the car recorded specifically for that purpose or any of the hundreds of tapes I had lying around recorded for various reasons. I would work, usually without music it has to be said, and then return home to that same tape or others. Then I would mark to a selection of CDs that were stacked by the player - usually albums - and then retire to the internet for an hour or two and do the pots and things, all to music. I would then go to bed with a set of earphones and listen to other tracks and read before sleep.

Over the years I developed different music for different jobs and I would regularly break from whatever mundane task I was doing to jerk spasmodically to the music, I can't claim to dance, and sometimes, if I was really into it, I would close my eyes and move about in sweeping movements. Dependent on location and level of embarrassment I may crank up the CD player to loud or use earphones and close the curtains to dance. In short, my life was a constantly evolving soundtrack of various types of music and artists, mainly Pet Shop Boys but also plenty of others, all of which were placed on at random and on a whim. I may listen to an entire album, several times, or cherry pick tracks and repeat those or just a single song that I wanted to play the shit out of for whatever reason I had at that time.

Sometimes it was heavy and hard-hitting tracks like Amazing Grace by thebandwithnoname, sometimes it was mellow choral stuff like Libera and sometimes it was poppy dance stuff like Discoteca-Single by the Pet Shop Boys. The point was that music surrounded me so much that I sort of forgot how rare and beautiful it can be to lose oneself in the pounding synth or the mellow strings or the intricacies of guitars and drums and piano. Like from Keane or from some ensemble group. How one can simply breathe the beat and close eyes and be somewhere else. Nowhere specific, just somewhere,

I was washing the pots this evening to the strains of Discoteca and the other songs on the further listening CD of the Bilingual re-release by the Pet Shop Boys and had to dance to a section. I realised that I had not done this since sometime in 2010 and hadn't done it regularly since 2007 when Tilly moved in. I have never actually danced in front of her or even in her presence. Partly this is my natural embarrassment but it also stems from Toby's statement back in 2005 that she was embarrassed by my dancing and that I ought to be embarrassed too. It was further confirmed by the awful experience in the club that first Christmas in 2006 and compounded by a dance class taken in the summer of 2007 where I singularly failed to meet any of the cues, follow any directions properly and was asked by Tilly how it was I could have no sense of rhythm. Like most people she can't quite understand what it is that prevents me singing any actual notes at any point - I am perpetually out of tune and can't seem to hit actual real notes in any kind of progression, certainly not consistently.

But, when I was alone and the music was loud, it never fucking mattered.

Drip Feeding

Ha, I named the image 'plumbing'
because it's a play on words, you see.

Recently I fixed a pipe in the spare room. Rather, I turned a tap off on a pipe that went nowhere and the incessant dripping noise that plagued the room ceased, which is fitting given that it was previously incessant, and since then has not restarted. The crux came when we had so much water in the tank overnight that a spike in temperature the following morning (maybe the difference of a couple of degrees centigrade) had water tumbling out of the overflow and into our patio below. Nevertheless, that dripping noise that blighted the spare room had started me thinking already, though the 'repair' was carried out a few weeks ago now. It also linked to a post I read from Rhiannon last night about whether anyone can truly escape from the thoughts in their heads and a post on Dee's blog about the power of novelty in the TG community - itself answered well by another philosophical post about how novelty can have massive effects in pretty much any area of life by Calvin.

How much are our own desires very like the tap? I realise I sound like the quintessential British vicar in a Church of England sermon or else on Radio 4 doing 'thought for the day': "my son and I were watching the football match on a Sunday afternoon when he turned to me and asked, 'Daddy, which team is Jesus playing for?' To which I replied that He was of course playing for neither team, but, thinking about it later I realised that, in a very real sense, He was. How many of us have at times wondered..." You get the idea. Anyway, I digress, the point was that the dripping of that tap, on a pipe that, so far as I can tell, goes nowhere seemed to very much sum up a great deal of things all at once.

This is not the plumbing in the house. It's just complicated
looking. Apparently.

I worry, because it looks simpler than what we have.
I can follow this shit.

For some people, the pipe does go somewhere. It disappears into the fabric of the building, feeding some great tank of indeterminate size that, if left untended and unconnected, will explode and leave a hefty repair bill. However, if tended and looked after will produce some marvel of modern engineering, I'm thinking a power shower with side nozzles in a wet room in the basement that is just perfect for luxuriating in. I have rather missed having a shower since we moved and the recent holiday afforded me the opportunity to use our host's shower - nothing too fancy but it was such a relief to be having a shower every morning again! Having a bath this morning was something of a disappointment. And, to continue the abandoned analogy, that shower would be full transition. A very personal thing. For others, that pipe is a curiosity and has no seeming purpose, shutting off the tap allows them to pretty much forget that there was ever a pipe. Indeed, once that dripping is ended by the simple expedient of closing off the tap they simply forget that there ever was a pipe. It doesn't go anywhere, it's still out there, but their lives continue much like the life of my own house does - unaffected.

I...

This is post-modernism. I'm sure it means something.
My own narrative obviously applies this to my current
relationship situation. Somehow.

These latter people are rare in the community I should like to consider myself a part, but they exist, and all power to them. In that sense, Calvin has the nub of the issue - that novelty should be embraced in all its forms and there is no one can explain their feelings to closely approximate another's when faced with a similar novelty - all things are in the eye of the beholder. Post-modernism in life, if you will. But I'm more of a modernist historian and, though post-modernism has much to offer literary criticism, I find it less useful when studying the past - principally because it assumes that historians have a tendency to take source material at face value when undertaking research and I call bullshit on that approach. As a historian I can never fully trust the sources, but nor can I assume therefore that the past is so far out of reach that any old interpretation is valid. My point being that I see more value in sharing experiences and standing with people whose experiences are similar enough to share what I have learned with them when faced with novelty or simply to stand near people whose experiences are very different indeed.

Mystery.

For me, that pipe is a vexation and a delicious mystery. I should like to know where it goes and what it feeds, but the fact that it disappears down the back of the hot water tank into the darkness beyond and is lost to view in the fabric of a very old house means I cannot so very well track it and find out. Furthermore, I wonder at the purpose, when the act of shutting off the tap that feeds it simultaneously solves the dripping and fails to affect anything else in the house. In much the same way there is a dripping in my own mind, that only grows more insistent. And here the analogy breaks down. My tap has been shut off since before the holidays began, maybe in July(?), my memory is poor on such things and I'm too lazy to check. And yet that dripping continues. In my mind the hot water tank is still filling up and all it will take is a slight difference in temperature to cause the whole thing to overflow and ruin the patio again. Probably while we have washing out. But, unlike some people, I have no clue where that tap is ultimately feeding nor what the potential result of simply letting it flow, and ending the dripping by letting it free, would be. And I never have.

Oh why the heck not, it's been a while.

Around this time last year I was merrily preparing for a few weeks away from the family (that would turn into five) and a new job. Little did I know that September of last year would become such a lovely time for me as I was able to indulge dressing every evening (well, Sunday through to Thursday each week) and even sleep dressed on most nights. It was beautiful. I could eat and cook and watch TV and surf the internet and mark and plan and live in a way that felt perfectly natural. Of course, there were other ways I experimented, with handcuffs and rope, but mostly just the act of being dressed and doing what needed to be done was enough. Stuffing a bra felt perfectly natural, I actually liked what I saw in the mirror (sans face) and felt comfortable in my own skin. Did I act any more feminine? Well, no, I don't believe so. I listened to the same music, I drank ale and reviewed it and I planned my lessons just the same as before. Given a longer term and less internet access (i.e. not having a family to be in contact with) I suspect I would have read the same books and maybe even played the same games on the computer. Was it just novelty?

*sigh*

No, I don't think it was. I'd lived similarly for a brief while in 2005/6 as I split from my Mad Ex, spoke in earnest to my first girlfriend and Catherine, but mainly to Catherine, and just accepted that I was, in fact, a cross-dresser and that my dressing was unlikely to condemn me to Hell nor cause some unravelling of society about me. From that conversation I dressed more on my own and went through phases of doing it often and not for no real reason. When I first moved in July 2006 I was determined to set my living quarters up as I would like and made a point of placing my femme wardrobe next to my bed and indulging quite regularly, especially in bed, and I had plans to paint the room in purple and black to match who I saw myself as. The living room faced the rear and there were no other houses there and so I had that set up to be a place to sit, dressed, and watch TV or just, well, be. There wasn't much of an opportunity to enact my plans as I was away in the States for much of August, in school September, and then dating (and inviting Tilly back to mine) until February the following year when she moved in and BAM that was it.

I didn't smile quite so much and I did
rather cut myself.

So the novelty, if that were a driving factor, would have been exhausted some time in the summer of 2005. But it wasn't. I shaved my legs for the first and only time that summer and loved the feeling of it, no, really. I remember reading of Leslie's attempts to feel comfortable with her legs when catching up with her blog and instantly identifying with the wonderful feeling of smooth skin on one's legs. I have no desire nor urge to shave my genitals, I'm not one for shaving my face, but legs... well, that's a different story. I think I'd do my armpits too if I thought I could get away with either. It's the one time I have enjoyed a bath, shaving my legs in that flat before school started. Lovely. Was it novelty that drove the action? Well, in part, yes; but also not in the main. Or doing it would have been enough. If you see what I mean. Recently I have enjoyed wearing a wig, but I did that a great deal back in 2005 with my Mad Ex too and enjoyed it as much then as I do now. The enjoyment hasn't faded the more I do it.

Hmm, clearly, this post was not quite ready yet. I shall no doubt return to muse further.

Adrenaline

What do I want? A question I oft return to but never satisfactorily answer. It is something I think I'm going to have to try and answer soon I think. Since learning the term "sexless marriage" and reading about others in them I am learning that most are very much the same in fundamentals and I'm going to have to start seriously thinking about where I go from here. That's the trouble with learning new things - one cannot un-know what is known. New thoughts and knowledge requires new paradigms.

So, what do I want? In broad terms I have the following:

1. Physical and emotional intimacy from a single, female, partner.
2. Security of need - to know that I will be supported and desired.
3. To be loved for who I am and to love in return.
4. To be complimented once in a while.
5. When I say things like "I'm fat" to be told the pointless lie "I still love you".
6. To have playful and experimental experiences that may, or may not, lead to sex. Indeed, they may not work, they may fail totally. But to share them, enjoy them, laugh about them and then try again. For these to not have the pressure that they lead to orgasm and sex but be able to accept they might and that not be a bad thing.
7. To leave with a kiss goodbye, arrive home to a kiss hello. Hell, to kiss once in a while.
8. To come first once in a while and be able to allow my partner to come first too. And no, not in a sexual sense.
9. To dress safely and be able to talk about that fully. To have someone understand the liberation it brings to me and accept it, even if they don't want anything else to do with it.

That's all I've got at the moment.